What Could I Give to God?
I did a little study an hour or so ago because I read something that reminded me of something that I've been meaning to look into for quite some time. Though I've never done the study before, I can recall even as far back as several years ago wondering to myself "How can we bless God?".
I've read the entire bible at this point, though I have to admit that there are so many words, and so much materials and so many contexts that it could be taken in, that I really haven't gotten out of it what I could have when I read the entire thing all of the way through the first time. What I 'have' found, is that I have gotten much more out of it by reading individual books, or groups of paragraphs on their own; a reading those books or paragraphs over and over again as a part of a real effort to 'study' them by seeking God and praying to God for understanding.
Well that tangeant aside, when I did a study on our ability to "bless" I was surprised to find out that God had in fact given us the ability to create "well" or to bring "good" to others by the something that he has put inside of us. Here are the two groups of scriptures that I studied.
Passage Lookup one
Passage Lookup two
However I have not found anywhere in the scriptures where we have the ability to bless God. When I looked at other versions of the bible I was only able to find one scripture that used the phrase "bless God", though when I looked up the Hebrew word that is used for the word "blessing" I found that it could also mean "praise". In the Greek it was a word more akin to confering a benefit.
So, in the context of this I can not see any place where it makes sense to translate the word into "bless" instead of "praise". Though I am sure in King James time the word "bless" was probably used interchangeably with "praise" and there was no confusion at all. I'm not a scholar however and I would encourage anyone to study this on their own. I believe that we are only judged by what we know. And if someone doesn't 'know' then how can they be judged in regard to that? The only thing that might supercede this is that we all know that we should take more time seeking the truth of God, and if we don't do that then we are accountable there.
For me, even before I studied the scripture on this, I was always disturbed by the thought that I might have enough power to "bless" God, or to bring "good" of any sort to God, or whatever euphemism that I might want to plug in there. As for me, any time I think of the idea that I could have that kind of power I immediately check myself because I could never imagine being powerful enough to bless the almighty. There is nothing that I can do 'for' the almighty. On the contrary who has ever counseled God or given him anything. What do we have that has not been given to us by God? Could we 'possibly' do anything 'for' God at all?
Even submission to him is not anything that we 'do' for God. We were created for that very purpose, and to do anything 'other' than submit to him is akin to absolute and complete rebellion against the one that has done nothing but love us.
I've read the entire bible at this point, though I have to admit that there are so many words, and so much materials and so many contexts that it could be taken in, that I really haven't gotten out of it what I could have when I read the entire thing all of the way through the first time. What I 'have' found, is that I have gotten much more out of it by reading individual books, or groups of paragraphs on their own; a reading those books or paragraphs over and over again as a part of a real effort to 'study' them by seeking God and praying to God for understanding.
Well that tangeant aside, when I did a study on our ability to "bless" I was surprised to find out that God had in fact given us the ability to create "well" or to bring "good" to others by the something that he has put inside of us. Here are the two groups of scriptures that I studied.
Passage Lookup one
Passage Lookup two
However I have not found anywhere in the scriptures where we have the ability to bless God. When I looked at other versions of the bible I was only able to find one scripture that used the phrase "bless God", though when I looked up the Hebrew word that is used for the word "blessing" I found that it could also mean "praise". In the Greek it was a word more akin to confering a benefit.
So, in the context of this I can not see any place where it makes sense to translate the word into "bless" instead of "praise". Though I am sure in King James time the word "bless" was probably used interchangeably with "praise" and there was no confusion at all. I'm not a scholar however and I would encourage anyone to study this on their own. I believe that we are only judged by what we know. And if someone doesn't 'know' then how can they be judged in regard to that? The only thing that might supercede this is that we all know that we should take more time seeking the truth of God, and if we don't do that then we are accountable there.
For me, even before I studied the scripture on this, I was always disturbed by the thought that I might have enough power to "bless" God, or to bring "good" of any sort to God, or whatever euphemism that I might want to plug in there. As for me, any time I think of the idea that I could have that kind of power I immediately check myself because I could never imagine being powerful enough to bless the almighty. There is nothing that I can do 'for' the almighty. On the contrary who has ever counseled God or given him anything. What do we have that has not been given to us by God? Could we 'possibly' do anything 'for' God at all?
Even submission to him is not anything that we 'do' for God. We were created for that very purpose, and to do anything 'other' than submit to him is akin to absolute and complete rebellion against the one that has done nothing but love us.
posted by Timothy at 6/09/2005 12:00:00 AM
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